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The 'USB Killer' Has Been Mass Produced -- Available Online For About $50 (arstechnica.com)
New submitter npslider writes: The "USB Killer," a USB stick that fries almost everything that it is plugged into, has been mass produced -- available online for about $50. Ars Technica first wrote about this diabolical device that looks like a fairly humdrum memory stick a year ago. From the report: "The USB Killer is shockingly simple in its operation. As soon as you plug it in, a DC-to-DC converter starts drawing power from the host system and storing electricity in its bank of capacitors (the square-shaped components). When the capacitors reach a potential of -220V, the device dumps all of that electricity into the USB data lines, most likely frying whatever is on the other end. If the host doesn't just roll over and die, the USB stick does the charge-discharge process again and again until it sizzles. Since the USB Killer has gone on sale, it has been used to fry laptops (including an old ThinkPad and a brand new MacBook Pro), an Xbox One, the new Google Pixel phone, and some cars (infotainment units, rather than whole cars... for now). Notably, some devices fare better than others, and there's a range of possible outcomes -- the USB Killer doesn't just nuke everything completely." You can watch a video of EverythingApplePro using the USB Killer to fry a variety of electronic devices. It looks like the only real defense from the USB Killer is physically capping your ports.
I tried it on my laptop, desktop, and phone. And it does not respond. Matter of fact...hm.
No, seriously, thank you! Drain the swamp!
I can't believe these computers are built with current limiters!
I'm gonna have to stop putting random USB sticks in all my devices. :(
People kill devices by plugging this in.
I can just picture someone plugging one of these into one of those public charging kiosks at an airport. Wanna bet how well the ports are well isolated?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I'm calling shenanigans on the claim it was used to fry a 'brand new MacBook Pro', as a brand new MacBook Pro doesn't have USB ports. Unless you're buying a model that's a few years old, and why would you do that?
I'm glad my iPhone 7 is safe from any potential 'headphone jack killer' devices. Ha ha. You lameos and your non-Apple products.
This is why we can't have nice things.
Like the fact that you can find a USB port in planes, trains, bars, and various other places where you might need to charge up your phone?
Yup, not any more.
It really sucks that some people just like to watch the world burn.
Pour it on laptop or desktop or server. Works 100% of the time.
Someone should sue these tick turds. Right after they inhale watered PC smoke.
than usefull to tinfoil hats/hacker/maybe spies if it melted ram and hardrives then maybe. uess its still chemical solutions to fry their data in a rush.
What would happen if you plugged one of these into a charger?
Trolling is a art,
This device will self destruct in 5 seconds (or however many cycles it takes to get to -220V)
**Life is too short to be serious**
One interesting use I can think of is to simply carry one around in case you get arrested by the police.
Supposedly police require a warrant to search your personal papers such as your cell phone, so this shouldn't be much different. If they take the USB drive over to the cruiser and plug it in "just to see" then this will fry their system.
You can even tell the officer not to plug the device in, that it's not a thumb drive, and that there's no information on it.
It would probably work at airports as well.
I really don't see a downside to this.
This idea goes way back to phreaking and what I think was referred to as a blotto(sp?) box. Basically hooking an inverter and HV transformer directly into a telephone junction box and causing unpredictable levels of destruction in the surrounding area.
In highschool someone discovered sticking a car key into a usb port was like the computer equivalent of 'cartridge tilting', although it usually damaged the machine in addition to the graphical glitches it produced.
I don't get the concern here. Abbie Hoffman used to describe plugging the phone network into the power grid and taking out an office telecom system. What's new here? You can break a computer in a thousand ways if you have access to it. Shoot it, blow a fire extinguisher at it, pee on it, use compressed air, drop it on the floor, EMP it... whatever.
I think this "news story" is actually a slashvertisement.
Are optocouplers too expensive to include on motherboards now? That's what should be frying, not the whole laptop.
"Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
I'm all for things that go boom. I love weird, clever little gadgets. I admire a clever and subtle subversion of a system, even when I don't condone its use.
But geez; this thing is not exactly elegant. It uses a fairly basic circuit to exploit the completely unsurprising fact that the interface isn't designed to handle high voltages.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I don't have any problems with someone using this to fry usb ports on things that don't belong to them "for the lulz" being fucked in the ass to death. For the Lulz.
All I need is a regular outlet and my Anker multiport USB charger. Each port individually protected.
The problem with a device like this is it is hard to find a substantial legitimate use for it. Given that, they are likely to be targeted for a lawsuit and they are likely to lose that suit.
While it is perfectly ok to sell a device that gets used to commit crimes, you generally have to have a legit reason to be selling it and it can't be something that is totally made up that nobody actually believes. So for example while a crowbar can certainly be used to break in to a house to or attack someone, they are also widely used used to get nails out of things and pry stuck objects apart. As an opposed example a number of companies that sell devices to help you cheat on urine tests have gotten in trouble since their devices had no use other than said cheating.
It is very, very hard to think of a legit use for this and I can't imagine they'll get many legit sales. So it'll probably get them in legal trouble.
I hope everyone that buys this device to do harm to someone's system forgets and installs in into their systems. I can see something like this being used when you take your car in for service and the tech wants to get YOU and fries the USB in your car costing thousands to fix. Or worse yet they use it to make money at the repair shop car after car with thousands of repairs. Even worse yet BestBuy techs use it to fry peoples laptops/tablets to force them to buy a new on. Holy crap this is a really bad thing to make available to people.
I doubt they'd have a hard time stretching it to over something like this. If you have a device who's only purpose is to destroy something and it goes and destroys something, well you are pretty likely to get in trouble for it.
Remember courts aren't operated by overly literal geeks who think if they can find some explanation, no matter how outlandish or unlikely, it'll be accepted. The law bases a lot around what is reasonable, and around intent. So your attempt at being cute won't work, and you'll be off to jail.
It also may very well be illegal just to have, or be made illegal if not. There are devices that are outlawed purely because they have no legit use. Many states ban burglary tools, which can include things like the cracked ceramic piece of a spark plug (the aluminum oxide ceramic breaks tempered glass easily). If they catch you and can prove intent, then you are in trouble just for having them with the intent to use them illegally.
Oh and don't think they have to read your mind or get a confession to prove intent. They usually just have to show that the circumstances surrounding the situation are enough to lead a reasonable person to believe that you were going to commit a crime.
And a post like this, would count for sure.
or perhaps thermite
I have physical access to the device to begin with. I could just as easily get all stabby with an ice pick or blunt object.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Why in gawd's name would anyone mass produce such a device? This must be one of those fake news stories we've been hearing so much about.
In technical terms, the USB ports could be designed with diodes to prevent this sort of attack. Perhaps they already are, but in fake news terms they could just up the stored voltage until it's stronger than a lightning bolt. Of course, in technical terms there is no reason it has to be that small anyway. You might as well run a wire to a USB connector and then touch the exposed lead to a fully charged Van de Graff generator. (Now I'm wondering how much static electricity protection USB ports already have.)
The story is credited to a "new submitter". I think he's just a new sock puppet and my proposed maturity filter might have dealt with him.
I'm trying to figure out how to cover the open base... What if it isn't a fake news story? I can't imagine any legitimate use for such a device, so I assume it would be made illegal as soon as the politicians can get off their duffs.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
The Taiwanese mobo brands have been layering ESD, overvoltage, and overcurrent protection, as well as fuses for individual ports, on their shit since the late 90s when tons of shit was getting fried due to crappy PSUs and crappy peripherals. The last time I saw it as a named feature emblazoned on the front of the box they were on version 4 of whatever they called it.
If you're buying OEM crap (Dell, Lenovo, HP, Apple), or an Intel board, you're fucked. Decent mobos will at the worst lose just the one port when the fuse blows.
This is just another way to vandalize stuff. I owned a far cheaper version of this 30 years ago. Its called a baseball bat. Before that, I had a tack-hammer. My ancestors had a version too, but they called it a "brick". Even earlier versions were called "rocks".
If we're lucky, cities will start passing ordinances to make mere possession of these a crime, since there is no legal purpose for these.
USB keyboards may be a catch22.
Witnessing small but steady improvements of technology over common sense. Ultimately there will be a single technological moment in which there will be no common sense at all.
Seeing this on Slashdot is like picking up a carpentry trade magazine where one expects to see advice on practical projects, tools and plans, to find a feature article about stepping on rusty nails. Carpenters sometimes step on them and there are bits of humor and sympathy here and there but this article is different. There are lurid photographs of nails sticking out of feet, everyone seems enthusiastic about the topic. They have obviously scoured the Earth to gather present those excited about this thing, and there a distressing number of people. It is even obvious that folks have stepped on rusty nails to be featured in the article.
The long time reader is horrified and confused. Perhaps something has gone horribly wrong with the world in a way that is surreal.
As stupidly pointless as inBOIL's death in Richard Brautigan's work, In Watermelon Sugar ,
Pauline started mopping up the blood and wringing it out into a bucket. When the bucket was almost full of blood, inBOIL died. "I am iDEATH," he said.
"You're an asshole," Pauline said.
And the last thing that inBOIL ever saw was Pauline standing beside him, wringing his blood out of the mop into the bucket.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Didn't something similar on my old system. The game ports were mounted in front and a screwdriver hit the exposed pins. I blew out one of $20 DIP's.
Anyone else dying to find out what happens if you plug two of these into each other?
Unless you own the hardware or have explicit permission. Using this otherwise is the equivalent of taking a hammer to a computer without permission. As this device has no purpose except destruction, it may even be criminal to own in some places.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
These kinds of things are the reason why you don't want your storage soldered to the motherboard.
Some kids are going to go around and nuking display-models of laptops, desktops, smart tv's, video game consoles, you name it. Time to start epoxying the USB ports of "permanent" installations of devices with USB ports.
Please note that in order to use this device on your new MacBookPro that you'll require a special USB-3->USB-C adapter. Please make an appointment at your nearest Apple Genius Bar to test your device.
I hope they lock the fuckers up and throw away the key if someone dies from one of these devices.
Fuck the cunts that sell these thing.
And fuck the cunts that buy them.
... I would have no trouble crushing that guy's skull. That cunt that invented that device doesn't need a lawsuit. He needs a brain hemorrhage from repeated blows to the head.
.. in my phone. Steal my phone or attempt data theft at an airport or police stop and your device gets fried.
"in that case maybe blowing the data lines would be a good thing overall." only until they find out why it broke down, then the person caught doing it get slammed for terrorism attempt or similar.
Yes, sure, an interesting thought experiment, I suppose. Maybe. If you're the sort of psychopath who likes to pull legs off of small insects and animals just to watch them die. And, if that's the case, well, you need to be removed from direct contact with society and should be seeking treatment, possibly including protection from yourself. There is no legitimate use that comes to mind for a USB-killer other than to intentionally destroy property (unlike, say, a firearm which has legitimate uses beyond the raw ability to kill or maim). Moreover, it would seem to be targeted toward public-facing USB ports which are, in general, a public good, and destroying a public good brings us back to the psychopath issue.
For everyone else, well, that sort of creative energy is useful put to more positive efforts.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
Time for someone to make and sell a 'USB Killer Killer'
Upon detecting that a USB killer has been inserted the USB Killer Killer quietly disconnects its protected USB link to the PC's USB port.
It then flashes a rotating red LED, sounds a warning siren and declares thermonuclear war on the unsuspecting USB killer by way of its 1.21kV capacitor bank, which interestingly happens to be around the size of an overweight adult hedgehog.
Unexpectedly the USB killers plastic casing instantly explodes and showers the user in molten hot plastic and metal shrapnel.
Hm.. i should probably rethink this idea.
Actually no, if you're stupid enough to use a USB killer this is what you get.
Just buy one and throw it in the police car park or the airport car park. No one will pick it up and stick it in the port right? And unless you're caught on one of thousands of face recognition cameras they won't be able to find you right?
Only a fool doesn't realize that Trolls like Trump love the swamp.
It's a nice product to demonstrate, that you should trust no hardware. But its a Proof of Concept. There is no reasonable use to mass produce it. Even securty professionals won't kill one notebook per customer, but just play a video of the thing in action.
Mass producing it just calls for stupid pranks costing a lot of money and killing a lot of data, which isn't backed up. And possibly getting people in jail, which think its just a prank.
I'm sure the same problem exists for all external connections (with an external battery to supply the capacitor charging current):
There are commercial devices that are used for ESD testing that have been available for many, many years. The only differences here are:
- the connector on the end
- the amount of (dis)charge
- the malicious intent
For Laptops:
Thunderbolt3
Power supply
HDMI
VGA
eSata
FireWire
PCMCIA
expressCard
serial port
parallel port
PS/2 keyboard/mouse
(the list goes on)
Hell, even applying enough voltage to an LCD screen would probably destroy pixels, if not render the entire screen dead.
For USB, specifically someone needs to invent the kensington lock equivalent for USB ports (although Thunderbolt3 ports are pretty damn small).
Or some kind of lockable case/protector or laptop condom....
Best not to leave your devices unattended, ever.
We're already getting emails about these from our managers forwarded from other districts. They're scared.
It looks like the only real defense from the SledgeHammer (tm) is to physically protect your laptop.
I think we should have some laws against ball-peen hammers and their ilk to protect our devices!
If you have physical access to a machine, you can do pretty much whatever you want to it.
If someone is planning to leave theses around to destroy computers then they could do a lot more damage with an infected USB drive - to anyone idiotic enough to plug in an unknown usb device.
If you want to maximize damage, an ounce of C4 in a drive will to a lot more damage. Thermite would be more spectacular.
I don't get it. You spend $150 for a device that will make a computer fail in a boring way.
this on things. Varied results. Some things die, some don't, some have odd shit happen in between.
Just be careful to keep your fingers out of the way when you smash the laptop.
Wait... Now get two for the same price, just pay additional shipping and handling.
I will break anybody who uses that on me.
They're really easy to make too. You just take a regular USB project, get some of the wires confused and hey presto! You too could be frying the data line with high voltage instead of doing what you actually want your circuit to do.
on an airplane. Great, now no USB sticks on planes
Have gnu, will travel.
Since they require the 5V power from a host to generate the high voltage and all...
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This device will appear in a hacker/spy movie soon. Depending on your age and viewing preferences it could be:
1). Jason Bourne; ...
2). Jack Reacher;
3). Lara Croft;
4). XXX;
5). New (New New?) Avengers;
6). James Bond;
7). Die Hard;
8). One of the various Super Hacker movies, one-offs starring such people as Robert Redford, Angelina Jolie, John Travolta, etc.;
9). Scorpion;
10). Mission Impossible;
11). S.H.I.E.L.D.;
12). Men In Black;
13).
50 bucks for this? Back in "my day", we made these things for nothing, and we used them too. Here's how you do it:
1. Cut the cord off a lamp
2. Cut a data interface cable in half
3. Splice the two together
Plug one end into a surge protector outlet, and one end in to any computer component. BLAMMO!!!!
Then reset the surge protector, and you're ready again.
O NOES HOW DO WE PROTECT OUR DEVICES FROM THIS!!! :D
Here's an idea: Don't let your idiot h4xx0r children borrow any hardware you actually NEED.
(Took my parents a round or two to learn that One Simple Trick.)
Since this exists, it is now the responsibility of hardware manufacturers to protect against it.
damned lazy kids, back in my day we had to build our own etherkillers and solder the 110 line or capacitor and switch ourselves, then use hot glue or electrical tape to make sure it wouldn't shock the shit out of you (or leave it bare and you have 2 functions in one device.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.